Goodare additionally hypothesized that there was a sixteenth-century shamanistic cult centering around these beings, comparable to the Italian Benandanti and donas de fuera.
One of the earliest pieces of evidence comes from the sixteenth-century theologian William Hay, who complained of witches and local pagans claiming to meet with fairy-like women called "celly vichtys."
Briggs equated the Unseelie fey with the Sluagh (who abducted travelers at night and fired elf-shot) as well as the shellycoat, nuckelavee, redcaps, baobhan sith, and various other wicked fairies from English, Scottish and Irish lore.
[14] In a possibly related fragmentary story, a fairy woman was heard singing the words "sili ffrit" while she spun thread.
Sir John Rhys found that "sili ffrit" was sometimes used as a term for a child of the Tywlyth Teg or for anything small.
[15] Rhys proposed that "sili" came from the English "silly" (in this sense meaning happy) and "ffrit" from "fright," thus a term for a ghost.